Surprised Thomas Fire survivor: 'Oh, my God, I have a home'

Karin Dron, who lives at Gridley Road, was able to save her house, which is made of stone. Her house was built in 1932. She lost one small office space.
JUAN CARLO/THE STAR

Sage Joyner hugs Karin Dron, who lives on Gridley Road near Ojai. Dron returned to her home Thursday and found that it had survived the Thomas Fire. The stone house was built in 1932 by her late husband's father.(Photo: JUAN CARLO/THE STAR)

Flames had reached the bottom of the foothills above Karin Dron’s house as she heard the firefighters hit their horns.

Earlier, the crews had told her she could stay, but when they hit the horn, it was time to get out.

She, her nephew and a couple friends had worked for hours to hose down any wood on the 1930s-era stone house, cut back branches and drag brush as far as possible from the home and cabins.

The smoke was thick, and she remembers the ash feeling like raindrops as it fell.

That night, as the Thomas Fire swept closer to Gridley Road above Ojai, she heard the horn, got her dog and they took off down the narrow, windy road.

Dron thought it was probably goodbye to the house where her late husband had grown up and that his father had built stone by stone.

“I had just lost everything up Sisar canyon. I thought I was going to lose my only home,” she said.

But she did see it again. As the sun came up Thursday, she climbed back up the long driveway and saw what she hadn’t expected.

The house survived.

Late Wednesday, as winds picked up, the 48-hour-old Thomas Fire made a run toward the city of Ojai. Mandatory evacuations stretched throughout the city and surrounding valley and most people grabbed pets and took off to safety.

Communities in the hills and canyons seemed the hardest hit, but the 4½-square-mile city itself escaped the worst of the fire.

“I guess we could say we’ve been blessed … considering what it could have been,” Ojai Mayor Johnny Johnston said Thursday morning.

But with evacuations in place and the wind still unpredictable, he wasn’t exhaling just yet. Embers would still be an issue and the wind could pick back up and shift again, he said.

On Thursday morning, Joel Fox and Jennifer Day were shoveling dirt on hot spots on a property on Rice Road.

They had rescued a chicken they found in a wooden coop there, boxed in by smoldering heaps of wood.

“We live about four houses down on this street,” Fox said.

From left, Zubin Levy and Sage Joyner come to visit Karin Dron after her house survived the Thomas Fire that roared through the area.(Photo: JUAN CARLO/THE STAR)

They got home earlier expecting the worst, but their house was fine.

Fox said it looked like firefighters had stayed in their yard, and he heard they had managed to push the fire away from the homes.

He had watched the fire the night before from the top of nearby Signal Street.

“It came all the way over here in like 10 minutes,” he said pointing to the ridge above the neighborhood.

By 2:30 a.m., he left to stay with their friends in Camarillo. “We thought this whole neighborhood was toast,” he said while helping out in a neighbor's yard.

A few miles away, Dron had made coffee and was working with some friends to get things cleaned up.

It’s sort of a Dron tradition, she said of saving the home.

John A. Dron, who everyone called The Major, started building the house in 1932. He had finished the main parts before going to war in 1941, she said. After, he came back and finished.

The Thomas Fire had already destroyed more than 150 structures before reaching Gridley Road late Wednesday.

The Drons’ other property, about 40 acres in Sisar Canyon was on that list of destroyed homes. They lived there for 37 years, she said.

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Bill Slaughter, looks at his burned office at Sisar Canyon Road, where he kept all his rescue, climbing and backpacking gear. Slaughter is the captain of the Upper Ojai sheriff’s search-and-rescue team.
JUAN CARLO/THE STAR

Sage Joyner hugs Karin Dron, who lives on Gridley Road near Ojai. Dron returned to her home Thursday and found that it had survived the Thomas Fire. The stone house was built in 1932 by her late husband's father.
JUAN CARLO/THE STAR

Bill Slaughter, looks at his burned office on Sisar Canyon Road where he kept all his rescue, climbing and backpacking gear. Slaughter is the captain of the Upper Ojai sheriff’s search-and-rescue team.
JUAN CARLO/THE STAR

Gabriela Gutierrez, of Santa Paula described losing her home to the Thomas Fire as she and her family settle in at one of the city's evacuation centers on Thursday. Gutierrez found out the trailer home she shared with her husband and two kids burned down on Tuesday.
RICHARD LUI/USA TODAY NETWORK

Bill Slaughter looks at his burned office at Sisar Canyon Road where he kept all his rescue, climbing and backpacking gear. Slaughter is the captain of the Upper Ojai sheriff’s search-and-rescue team.
JUAN CARLO/THE STAR

Karin Dron, who lives on Gridley Road near Ojai, thought she was saying goodbye to her home when she evacuated with her dog. She returned Thursday to find the Thomas Fire had spared the house.
JUAN CARLO/THE STAR

Karin Dron, who lives on Gridley Road near Ojai, walks near her Ojai home that survived when the Thomas Fire roared through the area. She returned Thursday after having to evacuate.
JUAN CARLO/THE STAR

Johnny Kimmis, left, and his friend Richard Svestka water down the houses along Casitas Vista Road as the Thomas Fire nears. The fire was burning on Red Mountain Fire Road, which is across from his neighborhood.
JUAN CARLO/THE STAR

Johnny Kimmis waters down the houses at Casitas Vista Road on Thursday night as the Thomas Fire gets closer. The fire was burning on Red Mountain Fire Road, which is across from his neighborhood.
JUAN CARLO/THE STAR

The tenants made it out OK, but “it totally got blitzed," she said. “I lost everything there.”

On Wednesday, she tried to keep the stone house on Gridley from the same fate. There was too much vegetation for the firefighters to safely defend it, so she and others did the best they could before they had to go, she said.

“I stayed here until I couldn’t be here any longer,” Dron said, remembering as she watched the flames race across a ridge above her home.

Karin Dron, who lives on Gridley Road near Ojai, had to evacuate her home when the Thomas Fire threatened, but the stone house built in 1932 survived.(Photo: JUAN CARLO/THE STAR)

By 5 or 6 a.m. Thursday, she was walking up the driveway that cut a path through the charred ground.

The night before, they had turned on a lamp in an upstairs room as they nailed shut windows that have a tendency to pop open in the wind.

That’s what she spotted first.

“I came up and there was a lamp on,” she said. “I knew I still had a house and power.”

“Oh, my God, I have a home,” she remembers thinking.

A cabin, garage and workroom burned to the ground, a small orchard was gone and antique tools and other things were destroyed. But the house was OK.

“I think he would be grateful that the house is still here,” she said of her husband, who died a few years ago. “It’s the family legacy.”

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Joe Curley/The Star

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